Sky Crew: A Cosmic Crash Ushers In A New Era in Astronomy

Gravitational waves from two colliding neutron stars 130 million million light-years away were detected recently, and this cosmic event has sparked an astronomy revolution. The Sky  Crew returns to explain what the cosmic tells us about how heavy elements like gold, platinum and uranium were formed,  and what it means for the future of astronomy.  We check in on how NASA is improving the odds of identifying habitable exoplanets, plus another discovery, a “quasi-satellite.” And we look at a Planet Nine conspiracy theory!

GUESTS:

• Mal Cameron – former astronomy and space educator at the McAuliffe Shepard Discovery Center and coordinator of its NASA Educator Resource Center.
• John Gianforte – co-founder of the “Astronomical Society” of northern New England and astronomy instructor for Granite State College and UNH.
• Nicole Gugliucci -Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Saint Anselm College.

Here’s NASA’s visualization of doomed neutron stars whirling towards their demise:

This video from the Australian National University offers a quick but comprehensive overview of the collision of two neutron stars:

Read the New York Times coverage of the discovery of the neutron stars colliding, which more than one researcher described as “the holy grail.”

Artist’s concept of an unknown large planet, far from its sun, via NASA.

CREDIT NASA

Here is a diagram showing some of the orbits of some Kuiper Belt Objects (L91, FT28, SR349 etc.) that point to the presence of planet nine. It also shows a possible orbit for planet nine.

CREDIT SOURCE: (DIAGRAM) G. GRULLÓN/SCIENCE.

NASA needs your help searching for new objects at the edge of our solar system. Help scan the realm beyond Neptune for brown dwarfs and Planet Nine with the Backyard Worlds project.

Source: http://bit.ly/2yIML06